Archives for GISciences Centre

Recently, Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) entered into an agreement with the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) Canada Limited. This agreement, as part of Esri Canada’s new Centres of Higher Education Excellence (ECCE) program, will encourage more sharing of resources in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS helps address many business, socio-economic, and demographic challenges from a spatial context and presents solutions visually using interactive, digital mapping technology.

Esri Canada’s ECCE program involves only seven higher education institutions in Canada. The ECCE program will foster new and innovative uses of GIS in both institutions. Dalhousie and NSCC’s Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) & Applied Geomatics Research Group (AGRG) will see several benefits from this agreement including support from Esri for GIS activities and research with in-kind support for training, software, technical support, and scholarships and awards. This program will open up opportunities with a network of post-secondary institutions across the country that educate students in GIS, strengthening existing relationships in a way that will benefit students, faculty, and researchers.

The ECCE program is the next step in Esri Canada’s support of educational institutions across the country and complements their long-term, ongoing support of NSCC-COGS and Dalhousie. The Esri agreement with NSCC and Dalhousie will encourage innovation in GIS research and excellence in teaching in the field. It will help promote GIS education and course options for future students, pool resources to help increase the creation of custom software application development, promote the sharing of information around student availability and employment opportunities, and encourage collaboration with research funding. The agreements are in place for two-year terms.

NSCC-COGS has worked closely with Esri Canada since the company’s inception in the early 1980s. Since 2005, Dalhousie has received an annual scholarship from Esri Canada through the GIS Centre. Esri Canada creates software and tools that allow people to distribute GIS services through the web, desktop, and mobile applications.

Dr. Brent Hall, Director of Education and Research at Esri Canada, says, “We are very pleased to recognize the outstanding contributions of Dalhousie and COGS through their GIS education and spatial data research programs. Bringing the two institutions together through the new ECCE will serve to create a hub in Atlantic Canada that will allow students, researchers, and the regional spatial information technology information industry to continue to thrive.”

“Programs like this offer a chance for greater information and idea sharing which will help to inspire more real-world solutions for our communities and additional resources for our faculty and students,” says Dennis Kingston, Academic Chair for NSCC’s COGS at its Annapolis Valley Campus.

Dalhousie’s provost and vice-president academic, Dr. Carolyn Watters says the university is very pleased to take part in the ECCE program. “The opportunities the agreement opens up will not only benefit our students and faculty but will be instrumental in connecting us more closely with a national network within the GIS sector.”

“The ECCE that includes Dalhousie and NSCC provides further incentive for the institutions to work closer together in the field of GIS,” notes Mike McAllister, computer science faculty member and Dalhousie’s chair of ECCE. “There’s much to be learned from both institutions, in terms of how each is using GIS technology. Dalhousie has elements of spatial scholarship that underlie research and education in many of its faculties, while NSCC, specifically COGS, has been providing its expertise in geospatial work to industry nationally for years. The ECCE will allow us to identify more opportunities for innovation and partnership.”

“This ECCE is a win-win-win scenario for students and faculty at Dal and NSCC and for Esri,” adds Dave MacLean, GIS faculty and chair of ECCE at NSCC-COGS. “It opens up avenues for all involved to share resources locally and work more collaboratively across the board.”

On November 13, forty-five health researchers attended the Dalhousie-Esri Canada Spatial Intelligence for Health Forum at the Lord Nelson Hotel. This was the second time Dalhousie co-hosted the event, and this year saw a series of presentations about policy, research, application development, and issues related to care, illness and the future of health care and wellness in Nova Scotia.

The talks included:

From Information to Outcomes: An overview of information processes and tools

supporting public health practice in the UK

Dr. Frank Atherton, Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness

Health Mapping in Primary Care: Using GIS to Achieve the Triple Aim

Dr. Ajantha Jayabarathan, District Department of Family Practice

Geomatics from a Social Perspective (Nova Scotia Department of Community Services)

Using ArcReader to Visualize a Population?Based Framework for Primary Health Care Planning (Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness)

The day ended with a panel discussion about data, privacy, the provincial geomatics strategy, and academic research which included James Boxall talking about the larger questions and developments in academic efforts shaping the future of health research. James is the director of the Geographical Information Sciences Centre (GIS), which is located on the second floor of the Killam Library.

James Boxall, director of the GIS Centre, located on the second floor of the Killam Library.

Participants came away with both a greater appreciation of the spatial projects and research taking place as well as having a great many opportunities for networking and talking about collaborations and innovative solutions to the more complex problems of doing more research and application development within a policy framework where privacy is of the utmost concern.

The Royal Canadian Geographic Society (RCGS) has announced it is presenting the 2012 Literacy Award to the director of the GISciences Centre, James Boxall.

James Boxall, director of the GISciences Centre, located in the Killam Library.

The award will be given at the RCGS fellows dinner on November 7 in Ottawa. The award includes $5,000; half of which is donated to a charity of choice. James has expressed a desire to create a foundation to support K-12 teachers who wish to train in using geographic information systems (GIS) with their students.

James is the recipient of this award due to his work over the last 25 years to support and enhance geographic and spatial education at all levels. From 1991 to 1993, James was the original proponent in developing the Canadian Council for Geographic Education and has been actively working with not only our own Dalhousie community, in geography and GIS courses and through the development of the GISciences Centre, but also in the K-12 sector with teachers and schools wanting to develop skills in spatial learning.

When asked about the connection of this to Dalhousie and the Dal Libraries, James remarked, “Those who know the history of geography at Dalhousie know that much of the work that happened outside of our community ended up playing a role in moving things along on campus. Also, it makes sense because with the work we do in teaching and research, you simply have to look back at the foundation of the discipline—in 200BCE the chief librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria, Eratosthenes, founded the field of geography, developed latitude and longitude, and accurately measured the circumference of the Earth. We are simply trying to keep up with that tradition of geography librarians enhancing spatial learning.”

Congratulations on this honour James, from everyone at the Dalhousie Libraries.

The Dalhousie University GISciences Centre is to be presented the 2012 ESRI Inc. Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the upcoming ESRI Inc. International Conference in San Diego. The award is given to user sites around the world to recognize outstanding work with GIS technology.

The Dal GISciences Centre is the only Canadian group awarded this year; they were also presented with the 2007 Award of Excellence, given by the President of ESRI Canada Alex Miller. The GISciences Centre is in select company as it was one of over 100,000 potential nominees. The Centre is being awarded the 2012 SAG based upon years of service and promotion of GIS, geography, and spatial analysis within the academic community at Dalhousie and beyond.

Founded in 2005, the GISciences Centre has provided access to data, software, training, courses, analysis, and field schools. The Director of the Centre, James Boxall, stated upon hearing the news of the award: “It really is about the staff and students who have made the Centre what it is. They are the basis for the recognition, and we are all honoured by this award.” Staff and students currently working with Boxall in the Centre are: Jennifer Strang, Ray Jahncke, Max Lapierre, Jennifer Charney and Jennifer Grek-Martin. Boxall also notes that the Centre has helped promote the growth of spatial learning at Dalhousie and collaboration amongst government, the private sector and other educational institutions. “The result of this has been that Dalhousie has created – in a very short time – the largest user community of GIS within higher education in Canada. This means more GIS-related work across faculties and disciplines, and more students and faculty exposed to using GIS in teaching and research. Yet we feel we have only begun!”

And this just in: Max Lapierre, GIS student intern, has just been awarded a $2500 prize from ESRI Canada for his continuing studies in the application of GIS for planning and facilities. Congratulations all around!